COMMUNITY

Matthew 26:37 - He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated.

The first Sunday that the church I attend was back in the sanctuary was the 20^th of June. I could not attend, because summer sucks for me. When the service and the clapping for joy of being together in the sanctuary began, I felt forgotten, abandoned. Of course, this was no one’s fault. You see, while the church was meeting virtually, my spouse and I had gathered some friends from the 8:30 service we usually attend and watched by zoom. But at the end of May, they go to one service at 10 am. I cannot attend this during summer, because of the light and heat. For various reasons, no one attended our zoom session that Sunday.

I was devastated.

Now, Jesus’ grief and agitation comes from a different place, but we both wanted the same thing in that moment; someone to be with us and understand. I grabbed my spouse to cry on his shoulder. Jesus takes James, John, and Peter with him to pray.

I want to make two points today. First, I want us to notice that Jesus makes no move to make himself feel better. He prays for the cup to be removed, but he doesn’t deny his feelings; he feels them. He wants his friends there to support him as he grieves. We so often act like feelings are inconvenient things. But that’s true only if we’re invested in looking put together at every moment of the day. Sure, there are times when our emotions are inappropriate, but how often have we apologized for being sad or for crying when crying is an appropriate response? If you’re a woman, I suspect you have done so more than once.

Feelings are uncomfortable. That’s the other, possibly truer reason, we don’t like feeling them. Right? They can be ugly and sometimes they can be overwhelming. Many of us were taught not to have them or not taught how to deal with them. In this situation, avoidance seems like a great strategy. But Jesus is going to feel them, and I think being okay with feeling whatever we’re feeling is a good lesson to take from this verse all on its own.

However, as I was laying down feeling hurt, I began to think about other people who were probably feeling like I did. Left out and forgotten. People like myself who cannot go to their sanctuary for whatever reason and are watching services alone. I’ve learned that no matter what I’m feeling, I’m almost never the only one in any group that feels that way. So, I began to think about how to include those people in a communal worship experience.

This is yet another benefit of feeling our feelings; the possibility of coming out the other side with more awareness. If I had tried to “suck it up,” I never would have realized my part in not reaching out to people who cannot worship in person. Having had my experience, I became aware of a situation that I was not paying attention to AND I came up with a possible remedy. We could reach out to all the people on the church rolls and let them know we could zoom with them. We can share community at the same time as everyone at church, even if we cannot be in the same room. If I had stuffed my feelings, I wouldn’t have been able to think about turning them into something beautiful. The Buddha calls this turning arrows into flowers.

My second point arises from this first: the question that comes to me from thinking about his is Why does caring for the worship experience of those who cannot come physically every week or at certain times or temporarily seem to be an afterthought rather than an integral part of our worship planning?

B